Katherine Hepburn was born Katharina Houghton Hepburn in Hartford, Connecticut on 12th May, 1907. Her father was a doctor and her mother a civil rights activist. They were both comfortably well-off and forward thinking.

Hepburn’s father promoted the fight against sexually-transmitted diseases and her mother campaigned for equal rights for women as a suffragist. They both believed in birth control and women’s education. Katherine was sent to Bryn Mawr College from where she graduated in 1928.

She had five brothers and sisters. She was the second youngest and it left an indelible mark on her life when her elder brother, Tom, was found dead, hanging from their aunt’s attic

Whilst at college she met Ludlow Smith and married him the year she graduated. However, the marriage just lasted six years and they were divorced in 1934. However, what was to have more influence on her life than meeting a husband was the passion she gained for the theatre.

While at university, Hepburn took an active interest in the arts and the theatre and even played roles in two plays after her final exams. This motivated her to be an actress and she moved to New York to study acting. Her first break was in the New York production of “The Big Pond”, although it was not received well. She was dropped from the play, but easily found parts in other Broadway productions.

Her big opportunity was the 1932 Broadway show entitled ‘The Warrior’s Husband’. Her performance led to much acclaim and numerous screen checks, one of which resulted in her being offered a part in the 932 film ‘A Bill of Divorcement’. She received rave reviews and never looked back. In 1933, she won her first Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in ‘Morning Glory’.

After this, she returned to New York for a while, but nothing major came her way, so she retried Hollywood, here she got her second Oscar nomination for ‘Stage Door’ in 1937. Her job saw a number of bad dips in the late Thirties and she was starting to acquire a reputation of being ‘box office poison’.

She went back to Broadway for the ‘Philadelphia Story’ which was a big hit. She bought the film rights and took it to Hollywood, where she earned a further Oscar nomination and she was a big name all over again by 1940. Not long afterwards, Hepburn started in a film with Spencer Tracy called ‘Woman of the Year’ and this was the starting of a run of eight successful films with Tracy which spanned 25 years

During her most successful days of the Forties and Fifties, Hepburn won two Oscars and seven Oscar nominations. In the Seventies she began making TV films and even won an Emmy for ‘Among the Ruins’, which featured Sir Lawrence Olivier.

The only romance that Katherine Hepburn ever admitted to after her husband was with Spencer Tracy, but she never married again. In her last few years, she became a hermit and died at home on June, 29th 2003 at the age of 96

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with the Home Theater Chair. If you are interested in a Home Movie Theatre, please click through to our site now.